Mornings Like These
by thechampionsmistress
Summary: She placed her hand on my cheek; I wasn't shaking anymore but she trembled slightly. She tried to mask her questions but I sensed them and understood. There was intimacy in how close we were. A squeal to Nights Like These.


Author's Note: I was asked to continue_ Night's Like These_. However, since I had never planned to make it anything more than I one-shot, I struggled with how to do that without, in my mind, ruining what I have already written. Finally, this idea came to me. Hope ya'll like it as much as you did my first piece- your support is still astounding to me. You are all too kind.

_Disclaimer: I own nothing but the order of the words_

* * *

"I love you, Maura," I whispered as I intertwined my fingers with hers, clinching tightly to her hand. I felt her pull me closer and I didn't object. She had never held me that close. It was as if she thought she would never have that opportunity again. Though, after the hell we had lived in for nearly two weeks, I could not blame her and there was honesty in the way her arms clung to me and in my confession to her. She hadn't needed to, but she responded softly, "I love you, too."

* * *

I could still feel her lips on my neck and hands when my eyes opened to a red 4:47 blaring from the clock on my dresser. I had slept for five hours: a new record. Her arms were no longer around me but I could hear her steady breathing beside me. I hadn't expected her to leave, but the fact that she stayed through my nightmares and tortures never ceased to amaze me.

Gently uncovering myself, I swung my legs out off the mattress and eased myself off the springs, careful to not wake her. She deserved to sleep. Tiptoeing to the door, it creaked open as I stepped into the hallway, making my way to the living room. I just needed to move, to feel in control of which way my body went, of which foot tripped over the shoe still next to the bathroom. When Maura held me, the way she only would on nights like those, my wall disappeared. I cried. I shook. I lost control.

So, every morning, when I woke up, I would walk: just around the apartment, but enough to rebuild my foundation.

* * *

The vase was still on the coffee table, empty and cracked. My shoe was still where I had kicked it. This was what Maura had walked in on and my stomach clinched at the thought.

She was that person for me, though. The person who, despite deserving better, deserving far more, settled on me- for me, I suppose. It was hard to be certain how much she thought I knew, but I did. I knew.

I walked into the kitchen, finding napkins and a trash bag before re-entering the disaster zone surrounding my couch. Wiping the pool of water off the coffee table, I picked up each shard of glass and placed them carefully in the bag along with the flowers. To be honest, I couldn't remember who gave them to me, though Maura had complimented them. She had taken them from the counter I laid them on, not caring much if they lived through the night, and cut them, putting them in the vase on the coffee table, all the while educating me on the meanings of about half a dozen breeds before giving up because I truly could not care less. But I remembered them, then: Daisy's were gentle and innocent. Tulips depended on their color but all basically meant love. Roses ran the spectrum of emotion and could mean anything from love and mystery to rebirth or death.

It was all completely useless information, but I listened because it was Maura talking. And Maura mattered which terrified me more than the countless times I had been held at gun point, or had been tracked like an animal, or had my family's life threatened against me. To know that my happiness belonged to her, that her voice or her touch or her presence was essential to me was something I had never felt before and at the time, many months ago when the thought first entered my mind on a morning much like this, it had all been too much for me to handle, so I refused to process it. I refused to accept it as fact knowing the high possibility that my secrecy was hurting her. But the alternative was no better.

The weight of that thought found me leaning on the edge of my couch, a half filled trash bag in my hands, staring at the wall. I sat there in the silence, dwelling on Maura and my thoughts about her and me and us.

Everything had changed. I wasn't sure exactly when or how, but it had. I could never go back to her just being Maura and me just being me, not when we could be so much more. And more was where I struggled. I wasn't sure I was strong enough for that: to love her the way she so clearly deserved to be. She deserved someone who would hold her hand in the store, kiss her on the sidewalk, someone to put their arm around her and show her off with pride. I would only allow her to be with someone who would give her all of that, even if that person wasn't me.

* * *

Rising to my feet, I quietly placed the bag filled with the remnants of my temper into the trash can. I rubbed my eyes, still red and sore from use and took a deep breath, holding it for a moment before releasing it in one forceful blow- _control_.

I turned back into the hallway to find the door to my room angled open to show my bed and the woman in it. When she shifted slightly, turning her head with mild difficultly, scratching her stomach, I couldn't help but smile. It was one that started deep in my stomach, gaining strength from the beating of my heart before resting shamelessly on my face. That was the Maura no one knew but me.

I was glad she wasn't awake to see me watching her. It was not something I had the pleasure of doing often, at least not like this. I made my way toward her, leaning on the doorway, content to take her in before I shuffled to the empty side of the bed and climbed over to her. Lying down, I moved strands of hair from her face, ingraining the already permanent image further into my mind. How I could ever refuse her baffled me, though I did everyday. How could I resist something so breathtaking?

Then, she felt my fingers tracing her face and stirred, barely conscious but aware enough to make me back away slightly, resting my hand on the bed between us.

"Jane, are you okay?" Her words were calm, but I could see the panic in her eyes.

I knew I wasn't but I didn't want to alarm her to my internal struggle so I simply replied: "Yeah, I'm fine. Just needed to walk."

She studied my eyes, creating her opinion on the validity of my words. Reaching out, she placed her hand on my cheek; I wasn't shaking anymore but she trembled slightly. She tried to mask her questions but I sensed them and understood. There was intimacy in how close we were, how physically close I allowed us to be, in the gesture that woke her up. There had always been love between us, an amount of respect tying us together. But we had lines. And I was crossing them all.

I had no choice, though. She gave me no choice. It was like one of her science theorems or encyclopedia facts. There was no refuting that I could spend the rest of my life not able to claim her as mine, but one thing would always be true: I was hers. Whether I was ready or not, I was and it didn't take her near death to realize it. It didn't take a bold romantic gesture. It didn't take Frost or Korsak or Ma or Frankie pounding it into my head. It took her simply lying there sprawled out, softly snoring for me to see her, truly see her. And I knew I couldn't give credit to the horridness of the case and its effect on me because we were in the security of my apartment, away from the distractions of work, the bars, the frozen streets of Boston. Away from the death and the criminals-the job. Away from all the trivial facts I could rattle off about her. Away from the parts of her that drove me crazy.

It was just her.

And she was spectacular.

I sighed heavily, finally turning my head away from her, close to tears but holding them back because she would think I was upset and I wasn't. Next to her, not touching her, not saying a word, I was anything but. It was a sensation of unabridged joy I only thought existed on paper in books and poems, though there weren't words for this, for her, for us.

"We can talk about it if you want," she yawned, her voice barely a breath as her eyes closed heavily. I knew she was fighting back sleep for me, so I replied: "Maybe later. Go back to sleep, Maura."

But she was already there, once again breathing steadily, lying on my bed, her soft curls resting on my pillow: a type of beautiful I had never seen before. Stunning in a way only she could be: my oversized pajama shirt, one leg peaking through the comforter, the other covered by a sheet.

I moved to grab the comforter but she shifted closer to me, placing her arm around my stomach and I laid back down. She wasn't clinging to me this time. Her arm loosely around me was more tender than it was desperate. She simply wanted me to know she was there, that she was always there, that she would always be there. I paused for a moment, debating between pretending I hadn't noticed and wishing I hadn't. But I couldn't and I had, so I gently placed hand, just my hand as I could not bring myself to give more, on her forearm. She didn't flinch or react. She just continued to breathe: in, out, in, out.

And that's the thing about love: you don't know you've fallen until something simple happens like they say your name and you know no one else will ever do it justice or they touch you and it burns long after they are gone or, in this case, they merely sleep and it actually hurts your heart, makes it ache and you look at them and they aren't just them anymore. They are nothing you deserve, everything you want, and all that's in between.

And I fell in love with her on mornings like these.


End file.
